running the sump pump to the sewer line

My sump pump in my crawl space runs out of the house and then 50 feet slightly down hill through PVC Pipe to the back of my yard. The pipe runs under concrete decking. The pipe is broken and when the sump pump fires up I can see water comming from under the concrete.

I want to T my sump pump line into my washing machine discharge line that draines into the sewage system. I am on city sewage.

running the sump pump to the sewer line

If everyone had their basement pumping into the sewer then when there was a heavy rainfall it would put a high demand on the sewage treatment plant. And their may be oil or other chemicals that may get into the water system.

running the sump pump to the sewer line

In the past, it was legal and common to mix sanitary and storm sewage. The sewers were called common sewers an comtained normal sewage that took treatement and storm water that usually didn't require treatment.

Then they found out it was costing a fortune to treat all the storom water AND the sewage since it could not be separated once it was in the pipe. On top of the treatment cost, there was the cost of building and maintaining twice the treatment capacity.

Now, it is illegal to make new hook-ups in most areas. Most older cities are separating the street drains from the sewer drains where possible rather than building additional treatment capacity because it is cheaper to be split in the end.

Unfortunately, there are still many roof drains going into the sewer lines at the house.

Where I lived at one time years ago, when there was a big storm, the excess sewer flow was just dumped in the river and not treated. Everyone downstream did not take kindly to it, so the systems were separated.

It does not look like much, but it certainlt counts up at the wrong time.

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Last edited by concretemasonry; 11-01-2006 at 09:09 PM.
Reason: Addition